How They Make Money

How They Make Money

πŸ“Š PRO: This Week in Visuals

MRVL PDD INTU SNPS ADSK WDAY VEEV ZM AFRM OKTA RBRK BBY NTNX ESTC HQY

App Economy Insights's avatar
App Economy Insights
Aug 29, 2026
βˆ™ Paid

Welcome to the Saturday PRO edition of How They Make Money.

Over 300,000 subscribers turn to us for business and investment insights.

In case you missed it:

  • πŸ’» CrowdStrike, Salesforce

  • πŸ’° Wall Street’s Top Stocks in Q2


Premium members get:

  • πŸ“Š Monthly reports: 200+ companies visualized.

  • πŸ“© Tuesday articles: Exclusive deep dives and insights.

  • πŸ“š Access to our archive: Hundreds of business breakdowns.

PRO members get everything PLUS:

  • πŸ“© Saturday PRO reports: Timely insights on the latest earnings.


Today at a glance:

  1. πŸ“Ά Marvell: Custom Silicon Breakout

  2. πŸ“¦ PDD: Growth Slows Again

  3. βœ… Intuit: DIY Price Reset

  4. 🧠 Synopsys: EDA Reaccelerates

  5. πŸ—οΈ Autodesk: MaintainX Lands Cleanly

  6. πŸ‘” Workday: AI Mix Jumps

  7. πŸ§‘β€βš•οΈ Veeva: Falcon Lands Early Adopters

  8. πŸ–₯️ Zoom: Enterprise Momentum Returns

  9. 🌈 Affirm: Growth Meets Leverage

  10. πŸ” Okta: Agent Deals Arrive

  11. πŸ”· Rubrik: ARR Picks Up

  12. πŸ›’ Best Buy: PC Prices Do The Work

  13. ☁️ Nutanix: Hardware Workarounds Scale

  14. πŸ” Elastic: AI Penetration Jumps

  15. πŸ₯ HealthEquity: Margins Keep Climbing


1. πŸ“Ά Marvell: Custom Silicon Breakout

Marvell Q2 FY27 revenue (ending August 1st) rose 37% Y/Y to a record $2.74 billion ($30 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $0.94 ($0.01 beat).

Data Center revenue jumped 46% to $2.17 billion, representing 79% of total sales, as demand for AI infrastructure remained exceptionally strong.

Custom silicon should bring the next leg of growth. Management expects a significant acceleration beginning in H2 FY27, followed by custom silicon revenue more than doubling in FY28 as hyperscalers increasingly design their own AI chips. Marvell also expanded its partnership with Google across AI accelerators, storage, networking, and near-memory compute, backed by a six-year warrant agreement.

Chart preview
Source: Fiscal.ai

Connectivity remains a major driver. Demand for optical interconnects is accelerating as AI clusters require more bandwidth, while Marvell called its CXL memory-expansion business a β€œhome run” with deployments across multiple hyperscalers.

Marvell now expects FY27 revenue of roughly $12 billion (up from $11.5 billion previously) and raised its FY28 target to $18 billion (up from $16.5 billion). Q3 revenue guidance of $3.15 billion was also well ahead of consensus and implies another ~15% sequential jump.

Bottom Line: Marvell’s AI story is broadening from connectivity into custom compute. With custom silicon set to accelerate sharply, management is raising expectations faster than the current quarter alone would suggest. But expectations are already enormous: the stock trades over 50x forward earnings, and much of the Google opportunity through FY28 was already embedded in guidance. That helps explain why shares fell despite Marvell raising both FY27 and FY28 outlooks.


2. πŸ“¦ PDD: Growth Slows Again

This post is for subscribers in the PRO Member plan

Already in the PRO Member plan? Sign in
Β© 2026 App Economy Insights LLC Β· Privacy βˆ™ Terms βˆ™ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture